Danny woke at 7am, like clockwork. Bleary-eyed and poorly-rested, he pulled himself out of bed to shower and freshen up. His sleep had been fraught, when he made it there in the first place. He was haunted by thoughts of his impending paternal reunion, not to mention his ambivalence towards Mindy's love life. The fact that he shouldn't even care whom Mindy was dating, and still did, that alone turned his stomach and kept him awake half the night.

By 8:30 he had made himself at least look presentable for the day. He'd downed a cup of black coffee after an ice cold shower, mainly to remind himself that he was a man. He could handle whatever the day brought him.

He was a little early arriving at Mindy's hotel room, but she spared him the usual lecture.

'Hey Danny!' she smiled, looking radiant. Shit, no, he wasn't supposed to associate that kind of word with his co-worker-friend. But dammit if she couldn't work a pair of pyjamas and bed-hair. It was in that smile, he thought. That smile that didn't care about how much make up she had on her face, or how styled her hair was, or what she was wearing.

'Hey Min,' he stepped into the room, 'I thought you said to get here at nine?' He felt like he needed to at least sound disgruntled at the fact that she was still in her nightwear, to compensate for the inappropriate thoughts he was having about it.

'Yeah I know, but I forgot I'd have all this packing to do. It's harder to pack than you'd think, not that you'd know, Mr. "My-suitcase-fits-under-the-plane-seat".'

'There's nothing wrong with packing conservatively!' he defended himself. 'You always bring way too much on these trips, anyway.'

'Whatever, just make yourself comfortable and I'll get on with it.'

He obliged, sitting down on the bed next to her excessively large case.

'How can you be in such a good mood? Your boyfriend dumped you.' He asked, to make conversation. He knew she was determined to win Cliff back already, but he was still curious as to how Mindy Lahiri could bounce back so vibrantly from such a sudden break-up.

'On a technicality, Danny, and like Amanda 'Foxy Knoxy' Knox, I too will be exonerated. I changed my flight, I'm going to go back to New York this morning, and I'm going to win Cliff back.'

Oh okay that explains the urgency to pack right now, Danny thought to himself. Although he hadn't verbally questioned her preparedness for their evening flight, it had struck him as odd. It wasn't really like Mindy to being thinking that far ahead with things like this.

Shit, that sort of threw a spanner into his plan.

'No you're not,' Danny blurted out, panicked. 'You're coming with me to see my Dad.'

As incredulous and shocked as Mindy was, she wasn't sufficiently persuaded to accompany him to his dad's. So naturally, he resorted to deception to get her to come.

He felt awful about lying to her about the ride to the airport, but in that moment his need to have her by his side outweighed his guilt. Part of what had spurred him to actually call his dad was the thought of Mindy standing by him. It was insane that that was how he was processing all this, but he couldn't account for his irrationality wherever Mindy was concerned these days. One emotional problem at a time.